Red Jade. Henry Chang. Soho Crime. $25. 256 pp.

December 5, 2010|By Oline H. Cogdill, Sun Sentinel Correspondent

Red Jade. Henry Chang. Soho Crime. $25. 256 pp.

There are many Chinatowns in the United States and abroad, as Henry Chang shows in his third gritty police procedural featuring NYPD detective Jack Yu. And each Chinatown is connected to the others by an invisible communication known only to Asians.

Jack runs up against this Asian chain-mail of rumors, informants and criminal gangs as he hunts for Mona, the mistress of Uncle Four, a murdered gang leader. She has made off with her lover's horde of gold coins and jade treasures.

In "Red Jade," Jack has been trying to leave his Chinatown beat, even moving to Brooklyn after the death of his father. But his former commander needs him when a citizens' group wants Jack to look into the murder-suicide of a Chinese-American couple. There seems little doubt that an insecure, jealous husband killed his wife and then himself. The case leads Jack to complete his on-going investigation into the murder of Uncle Four. But first he has to find the gangster's girlfriend before the criminal's former cohorts do.

The chase takes Jack from New York to Seattle's Chinatown, where the streets are being controlled by a gang in Hong Kong. Both Mona and Jack know the tricks of hiding in plain sight.

Chang depicts the intricacies of life in Chinatowns, where ancient customs crash against the contemporary. But Chang doesn't just show these colorful neighborhoods. He delves into the reality of the Chinatowns, portraying longtime residents dismayed at the change going around them, gangsters trying to maintain control and tight-knit neighbors united in their beliefs, customs and desire to keep crime at bay. Chang captures the sights, sounds and smells of the various Chinatowns, showing the common threads and uniqueness of each as well as their histories.

"Red Jade" also examines the racism that Asian cops encounter among fellow officers and on the streets of Chinatown. But even cynical Jack can be surprised when a seemingly racist cop is anything but.